


Just A Body

by alutiv



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Grieving!John, My First Work in This Fandom, POV John Watson, Post Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-23
Updated: 2013-06-23
Packaged: 2017-12-15 20:52:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/853929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alutiv/pseuds/alutiv
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being away from Baker Street hasn't helped John recover.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just A Body

**Author's Note:**

> I've taken the WIP tag off of this, but as it's been neither beta-ed or Britpicked, comments are more than welcome. But please be gentle - I'm new at this.

At first, he had thought the pain in his leg was a sprain from his fall to the pavement, or muscle strain from his struggle against the strange arms and hands intent on separating him from the body he needed - not wanted, never wanted - needed to see. 

The body. How could he have been reduced to that? How could that frenetic whirlwind, that man who even when still radiated energy like a tightened string ready to snap, ever be just a body? 

Of course, in the end, everyone was. Just a body. Any medical student in Anatomy lab, any soldier in a combat zone, knew that, and John had been both, and then some. But, still, this. This seemed beyond possible. Sherlock Holmes, the finest mind John - perhaps, the world - had ever known, was gone, and all that remained was a body, like that of any other man. Like any of the bodies that Sherlock stood over, crouched beside, peered at, sniffed at, and then extracted vital clues from, clues everyone else would have missed. What tiny scrap of information would Sherlock have noticed from his own corpse? What might John have seen if he had been allowed time and space? 

Police were everywhere that day; none of them were officers he recognized. No surprise that Lestrade was officially barred, but he almost expected to see Anderson smirking over the only crime scene he knew with absolute assurance Sherlock Holmes could not mess up. 

“I’m sorry,” Molly had said with a glance toward the mortuary doors, “but I can’t.” 

“You… can’t,” said John. 

“No, I’m sorry.” 

He turned away, and his leg twinged, and he turned back. “You mean you won’t,” he said. “When it was him, that was never the answer, was it?” 

Her shoulders sagged, and he could see in her eyes how sorry she was, how sorry for him. “I’m -,” she began. 

“Sorry. I know. Don’t. Just… don’t.” He walked as briskly as he could down the sterile hospital hallway, away from the morgue where he knew the impossible body lay, the pain in his leg more insistent with every step. 

He tried all the usual remedies. The paracetamol tablets were useless, of course, but ice and rest likewise had no effect. There was nothing for it, he thought, staring up at the ceiling in the small hours. He had gotten to know every crack in on that ceiling and every shadow thrown from the street to the wall in the weeks he had been sleeping in Lestrade’s spare bedroom. Or not sleeping, as was more often the case. He told himself it was the pain in his leg, and not the dreams of his best friend falling again and again and again, that kept him awake. With a sigh, he got out of bed, turned on the reading lamp, and got dressed. He opened his laptop, but his hands stilled on the keys. The patch of sky visible through the window gradually lightened. When he heard the bathroom door open and the shower begin running, he limped into the hallway and shouted, “Going out. Back soon.” 

Outside, he gave the cabbie the address with just the slightest catch in his throat. “Wait here,” he said when they pulled up in front of Speedy’s, “please. I’ll just be a moment. I need to get something.” 

The cabbie shrugged. John opened the door with the key he still carried and left it open behind him as he mounted the stairs. It felt safer to keep that connection to the street. If he closed the door, it might be like nothing had changed. 

Nothing had changed. Well, almost nothing. John limped into the kitchen, his automatic destination, and his hand was on the refrigerator door before he stopped to think about what might have gone bad, or what might have grown, inside with no one to tend the “experiments”. He dropped his hand and turned quickly, striding as best he could to his old bedroom. From the back of the wardrobe he pulled the nearly forgotten walking stick. He could have just as easily - more easily - gotten a new one, he reflected. There was nothing special about this one, standard-issue NHS, serviceable. But this one was his. The clicking sound on each step it made contact was familiar still, his hand wrapped around the grip as if it had never been gone. He made his way down the stairs to the waiting cabbie. As he stepped through the doorway, his left hand still on the door, he heard Mrs. Hudson call, “John, dear, is that you?" 

He crossed the few steps to the open cab, pulling his wallet from his pocket as he did so. He pulled a few bills from the wallet and handed them through the open window. “Keep the change,” he said, swinging the passenger door closed. “Thanks for waiting, but, ah, well, thanks.” 

With another shrug the cabbie pulled away. John turned back toward the steps. Mrs. Hudson was in the doorway now, looking him over, giving a slight frown at the walking stick before saying, “Kettle’s boiled, if you’d like a cup.” 

John followed her into the hallway. “Thanks,” he said, “I’d love some. And some biscuits, if you’ve got them.” 

Mrs. Hudson tutted. “Sit down,” she said. John sat, waiting for the familiar response, but Mrs. Hudson said nothing, and he realized that he had become a guest in her home. He stood. “Actually,” he said, “I’ll be upstairs.” 

“Of course you will, dear,” she said, emerging from the kitchen with a two cups of tea and a stack of biscuits on a small tray. She lifted one cup from the tray and held it out to him. “Take this up with you. I’m not your housekeeper.” 

John laughed. When was the last time he had laughed? That day, that day he met with Mycroft, he had laughed then, but that was a different kind of laugh. “Of course not, Mrs. Hudson,” he said, carrying the tray toward the stairs. “You’re my landlady.”


End file.
